Soldiering on for the Olympic Games

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LONDON — If they are not the medal heroes of the Olympic Games, they are certainly the unsung heroes.

Their team uniforms? Battle fatigues.

And Seb Coe’s foot soldiers might deserve a medal for the conditions they’re enduring while helping to keep the London Olympics safe for athletes, dignitaries, media and visitors from around the world.

Having to wear heavy army garb in Friday’s unusually warm, sunny weather was the smallest of hardships for some of the 18,000 troops deployed at these Olympics. Many of the soldiers are staying in living quarters so spartan and smelly that one soldier’s mother told a local paper the digs were “worse than Afghanistan.” Many haven’t been able to watch any Olympic events; others have said they got turned away because they didn’t have tickets.

Through it all, the military troops are among the friendliest — and some of the youngest — faces to greet media and ticket holders at the Olympic Park venues every day. Publicly, anyway, they don’t complain. They soldier on. And while the Olympics, so far, has been a safer posting than some of the alternatives, the assignment has not been all fun and Games for the men and women wearing the brown military gear, checking buses and bags for bombs.

A female reporter from Canada recently remarked to one of the soldiers at a security check, “I guess you’d rather be here than in Afghanistan.”

His answer: “not really.”

So sensitive have the military brass become to local media stories depicting the spartan living conditions of many of the soldiers who “rescued” the Games following the G4S security company fiasco, when thousands of promised security staff were not delivered, soldiers have been told not to speak to reporters.

The irrepressible Daily Mail asked the question in a headline: “Is This Grim Bunker Fit for Army Heroes? Soldiers Protecting the Games Are Having to Sleep in an Underground Car Park.” Accompanying photos displayed the grim scene.

Unaware of Operation Zip It, on Wednesday morning I ventured to Tobacco Dock, a 19th-century tobacco warehouse in East London where some 2,500 military personnel are staying, sleeping on cots packed together in long rows, as in a temporary disaster shelter. Visitors have said the makeshift barracks reek of urine. Some of us didn’t get close enough to find out.

At the entrance, a soldier stood guard at a makeshift metal gate. I asked how he was doing.

“A bit ill, actually,” he said. “I threw up a couple of hours ago.”

“Something you ate?”

“Dunno. Had Italian last night.”

He was friendly enough, but told me I couldn’t get in without a day pass from the MOD (ministry of defence). He gave me the number. At the MOD office, a soldier named Craig told me there was a “waiting list” to get a pass. Would I like to be added to it? Sure, I said, knowing the Games would be long over, the soldiers long gone, before any such pass would be issued.

I asked a young female soldier, carrying a large duffel bag on her back, if she would talk about her Olympic experience.

“I don’t talk to reporters,” she said.

Several others said they had been told not to talk.

Back at Olympic Park, the soldiers were decidedly more approachable, even if it was next to impossible to get their name, rank and serial number.

Craig at MOD had told me I might find a “happy soldier” willing to talk. Then again, I might not.

At the entrance to Olympic Park, near the Stratford rail station, a corporal named Joel agreed to speak for a minute. Joel comes from Hastings (we all remember 1066, right?), had been in the military for six and half years, including postings to Iraq and Afghanistan and a training session in Calgary.

“It’s just like you see on the news,” he said. If there was more, if he had lost comrades in battle or explosions, he wasn’t going to share it. As for the Olympics, he was indeed one of the 2,500 soldiers staying at Tobacco Dock.

“It is what it is,” he said. “It’s not that bad.”

And the food?

“The food is good.”

With less than five days remaining in the Games, Joel had still not seen a minute of Olympic competition. He was not among the many who were asked to fill in empty seats at venues. He hoped to get in to see a bit of track and field action at the stadium, but didn’t know if he’d be able.

Soldiers in London can ride buses and the tube for free, some seem to be able to get in to some venues, but others have been turned away.

Last week, reacting to newspaper stories about the squalid conditions of Tobacco Dock, London mayor Boris Johnson took a tour of the site. He said the visit was to “thank them and congratulate them and listen to what they had to say.”

“Some of them want more free tickets — that’s difficult to organize with a snap of the fingers,” the mayor said.

And no, sorry, they couldn’t provide their names — but did I want the MOD phone number?

Another Canadian reporter asked a soldier at a security check, “Are you having fun, yet?

“So I’m told, sir,” he said. “So I’m told.”

wscanlan@ottawacitizen.com

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